between the acting of a dreadful thing
by Jim Handy
Summary: Dating a supervillainess is nothing like what Kevin Ford expected.


Dating a supervillainess is nothing like what Kevin Ford expected.

Sure, there's all the usual trappings of Ultimate Evil. The fortress is made of black stone, ringed around with impaled skulls and decorated with stained glass windows and statues that would give some people _(Cessily, he thinks when he lets himself remember the old life that was full of lies) _the creeps. Howls and screams will sometimes echo up from the dungeons at odd hours of the night. Selene's even given him a black leather ensemble which Kevin has to admit he likes better than he thought he would. Every single stitch is organic, and he can't so much as make it crack. He asked Selene one time how she made it, and she smirked and repeated the old line about magicians and secrets before reaching out to caress his face with her long white hands. Then she'd drawn his face up to hers, and they'd been much too occupied to talk for the rest of the night.

It's nice being with someone who isn't afraid of him. In fact, he's a little afraid of her.

She has a way of smiling when she's deep into a plot, or when she's draining her immobile, all too aware captives of their vital energy, that makes him shiver. It's definitely not a happy smile, and nothing like a snarl of feral glee, but those are the closet things he can compare it too. He's spent a good deal of his time studying that face, trying to figure out how to sculpt it out of metal or clay or marble. In the end, though, he'd given up. There were no materials he could use to convey the emotions he saw there, just as there were no words he could use to describe them. Maybe after someone had been living for as long as she had, you couldn't use simple human words to describe her thoughts and feelings. Whatever the reason, whenever he sees that expression it makes him want to duck his head low so she can't see his throat and scuttle away.

He's gotten better at controlling that reaction, though. It was hard, the first few weeks after she'd spirited him away to her private dimension. She'd given him the run of the place, only demanding his attention when there was something she wanted to teach or show him. It made sense; there was little he could do to harm her or her treasures. This pocket of subspace was hers and hers alone, locked so tight it was safe even from Stephen Strange. It looked like an ordinary woodland at first glance. If you looked harder and longer, you'd start to notice that the trees were bending and swaying without a wind, in ways they shouldn't, ways they couldn't if this were any sane world. The fruit and leaves took on strange colors and shapes as they came out, some almost looking like greedy, grasping hands. The grass seemed to almost be muttering secrets to itself when it rustled in the wind. Aside from all of this wild, overgrown vegetation surrounding the castle, they were the only permanent living things in the whole world.

The sheer loneliness of it all took some getting used to, after Xavier's and the crowded, dirty streets of New York. It had spooked him at first. Sometimes he'd be standing at a window, studying the landscape and wondering what his teammates would have made of its somber beauty, when he'd glance over and notice her standing right next to him, not making a sound. Or he'd be working on a sculpture, absorbed in getting the components to slot into just the right place, and when he stood up to drink or take a piss she'd be in the doorway with an amused smirk. He'd jumped back at first when she did that; her only reaction had been a slow widening of her smirk. Slowly, though, he's gotten used to her silent presence. The long, empty hours that fill their days no longer unnerve him, and he's learned how to recognize her presence without the need of sound. The trees and the grass seem less horrible, too. Now they just look beautiful, the unearthly hues mesmerizing.

Then, there were the screams.

The first night there, he'd heard shrieking from some previously unseen sub-cellar and raced down as fast as he could, convinced that someone had broken in and hurt her. When he finally skidded to a stop and looked in the door, he froze at what he saw. Selene looked up and smiled, the playful smile of a cat with a struggling half dead rat in its mouth. The naked girl lashed to the bloodstained table had let out a piteous groan.

Kevin ran out of the dungeon and stopped at the first bathroom he found to vomit.

After that, he'd avoided her. Sometimes he even tried to hide in the woods, but the longer he remained there the more he got the feeling that the trees were watching him. Not malevolent, not hostile, but always aware of where he was and what he was doing. Finally, hunger and exhaustion had driven him back into the castle. She'd opened the door and shown him to his room. He'd kept his distance still, but after that, the shrieks started to bother him less and less. As time went by, he kept telling himself that this was just another inescapable part of his new home, like the black stone and impaled skulls. By the time about half a year had gone by, he slept through even the wildest shrieks like a child.

Maybe that's why she decided to take him on that particular hunt.

---

She'd been studying this particular prey for a long while now. Kevin later learned that this was standard procedure for her, but it surprised him the first time he was ushered into the subbasement below the dungeons where she kept her occasional prisoner and her - trophies. The chamber had been empty except for the pool, which was three feet across and shined like a mirror. "Look in, and tell me what you see," she ordered him.

Curious, he obeyed. Scenes from a life played out before his eyes - a normal guy (John Lewis age 28) going about his normal life - sleeping, eating, working at an accounting firm, getting drunk with his friends, going to sleep tired and a little lonely but happy.

"Okay," he said slowly, feeling like the one kid who doesn't get the answer to the easiest problem on the final. "I see some accountant named John who kind of hates his job and wants to bone his best friend's girlfriend. What does this guy have to do with me? Or you? With either of us?"

She shook her head, setting her silken black hair to swaying, and laughed. "Oh, Kevin. I've shown you so much, but you still know so little. I am the mistress of this place, yes, and my power here is absolute, but I still need fuel to work my magic. Magic is strange, yes, and grants me powers far beyond any mutation or work of science, but it still has rules and costs that must be met. Therefore, I sometimes find myself in need of refreshment. I find this easiest to obtain in the mortal world." She doesn't have ot explain what kind of "nourishment" she means. He was there when she took care of the police.

"Well?" she asked, when the silence had stretched out between them. "Will you help me, Kevin? Will you repay me for all I've done and will do for you?"

Kevin just looked back at the pool and thought for a while. About some poor schmuck named John who was going to die because life was unfair like that. About his own life and how he'd been running since the day his curse manifested, and how he had someone who could help him make the pain go away, someone he could touch if only he was willing.....

Finally, he turned and looked her straight in the eye. "I'm ready."

She smiled, and stroked his cheek with a gentle lover's hand. His own smile was radiant as he took that hand in his.


End file.
